The Blade of Captain Sparrow
by Thalia Weaver
Summary: The indomitable Sparrow receives a gold-filigreed gift from his straight-laced protege. Much mayhem ensues. Jack/Will, Elizabeth/Anamaria
1. Chapter One: The Sword

The Blade of Captain Sparrow

By Thalia Weaver

The blade was polished to a fine sheen, and on the handle two initials were filigreed in gold: JS. Jack Sparrow grinned, hefting the sword in his hand. 

"Will's work," he mumbled, trying a parry. He lunged forward, not lurching for once, imagining he was opposite Will again. 

_How's your footwork, boy? _Lunge, parry, thrust. 

"Sword practice, Cap'n?" the sharp voice of Annamaria cut into his thoughts. 

"Aye. Just tryin' to keep me skills, savvy?" he looked at her sidelong. 

"New sword, I see." She leaned against the wall of his spacious captain's quarters. "Well, I've been sent to call ye to grub."

_Care to cross blades with a pirate? _"Give me a moment." 

She nodded, knowing enough to leave him to his thoughts, and exited.

"He forgot the C," Jack muttered ruefully, eyeing the blade before slipping it into its scabbard and traipsing off to eat with the crew. 

~*~

"Elizabeth," Will said, trying her name out on his tongue. Since the wedding he had been trying to still the impulse to call her "Miss Swann". His governor's daughter, resplendent in white, walking beside him with her face beaming. He loved the way her lips parted slightly, as though in invitation, the way her eyes sought his in a crowd. He could always pick her out: had been able to since that day on the ship, half-drowned, having survived a pirate attack only to be thrust into the arms of a savior with freckles and brown curls. Now she lay beside him in the bed and morning had come.

"Yes, Will?" her voice sleepy, understandable as they hadn't had much time for sleep the night before. But she woke for his voice. He watched her eyes, half-open, rest on his face and then flicker downward to his bare chest. Again that thrill: the knowledge that here was a jewel, bright gold beyond any smith's forge, and something bright and fragile as the sun's glint off a new-polished blade lit in his chest at the knowledge that she was his. 

His brow furrowed for a moment, thinking. Why had he made the blade for Jack? There was no cause to. Jack had a blade of his own, long and sharp, and able in battle: for a moment he thought of their duel, as his master had snored away, parrying and thrusting over roof beams and around the forge. The thought would have made him laugh had not another flash, bright as silver, strong as steel, sliced through his mind. He had Elizabeth, the one he would have died for cheerfully if he thought it would have let her go on living, albeit without him. Why bother to waste a thought on the unmannerly, drunken- or perhaps merely insane- pirate with overmuch kohl about the eyes? 

But Jack, traipsing through his head in the infuriating manner he did everything, refused to be dislodged. Will shook his head, looking at Elizabeth, for once, without really seeing her. 

"What's troubling you?" she passed a hand over his brow, smoothing the wrinkles, and smiled at him. That smile could have stilled a thousand of his heartaches (or more likely have been the cause of them) a month ago. 

_I should have told you this since the day we met. I love you._

"Nothing, Mi- Elizabeth." He tried to smile, knowing that- as with everything false he had ever done- it did not ring true. Why was he lying to her? 

_Care to cross blades with a pirate? _Jack lifting a brow, those black-lined eyes unfathomable. At that moment Will had been frightened, though he would not have admitted it for all the world. There was something unsettling about the way he moved, that pirate: the half-drunk swagger, the slur that would have been a sure sign on anyone else of being severely blitzed on rum. But Jack had certainly been sober for some of those moments…the grin like white-hot metal on the night of the rainstorm, Jack soaking wet still clinging to the steering wheel: _we're catching up. _Something inexplicable, much like Jack himself, stirred within the pit of his stomach. 

~*~

The object of Will's tumbled thoughts lifted a tankard of rum. "To freedom," he slurred, not noticeably different drunk than he was sober. 

"To freedom!" the crew chorused, thinking this sounded quite agreeable. Unlike their captain, most of them were showing the effects of large amounts of alcohol quite clearly. 

"Shiver me timbers!" croaked Cotton's parrot as the mute tipped back on the bench and fell over with a thump. 

"To Bootstrap Bill," Jack added as an afterthought, lurching slightly sideways. "Oooh, the view's better from here," he drawled, eyeing Annamaria's ample cleavage, displayed prominently in a low-cut shirt. "Lean over a bit, eh?"

The sound of a bo'sun slapping a captain's face, while normally quite unheard of in the Carribean, had become ritual on the Black Pearl. Despite her rather smashed state, Annamaria was quite lucid enough to retaliate.

"Why're you toasting ol' Billie, Cap'n?" asked Griggs, scratching his salt-and-pepper beard. (He had told Bidon, the dwarf, that he thought this made him looked distinguished: however, many were of the opinion he had a rather bad case of beard nits.) 

"Din't you know?" Jack replied, lifting his mug in a salute. "It's his birthday." 

"Ahhh," Griggs nodded, satisfied, then pitched over and landed in a heap next to cotton.

"Bloody wankers," Jack muttered, and took another swig of rum.


	2. Chapter Two: Tortuga

_It's old Bootstrap's birthday…_

Jack stood in the crow's nest, his hat-clad head barely visible amid the black sails. To the layman he would have appeared to be staring vacantly at nothing; however, the layman would have been sorely wrong, as most people were about Jack Sparrow. Arguably the only person who had really been right about Jack Sparrow had been Bill Turner, the one they called Bootstrap.

Few people knew the origin of that name. Jack Sparrow was one of them, of course; he had been privy to most things about Bill…

_~*~_

_There was a boy on the raft- more a youth than a boy, about eighteen, unconscious. The water-soaked rags of clothing suitable to a middle-class apprentice lay strewn about the raft, ripped to shreds and not covering much of anything the boy might have wished them to, except the twisted planks of the raft he lay on. On one of his feet was the tattered remains of a boot, the strap shining clear in the morning light._

_"Oi, mates- man overboard!" cried Captain Jack Sparrow, balancing precariously on the rigging._

_"Man overboard! Man overboard!" echoed the crew, hauling up the pale youth._

_"No use hauling 'im up, Cap'n," leered first mate Barbossa, giving the boy a cursory glance as he streamed water all over the deck. "That's just a dead weight."_

_Laughs went around the crew. Jack jumped down from his perch and swaggered over to the reedy naked boy lying prostrate before him. _

_"I don't think that's a corpse, my good man," he stated flatly, putting a beringed hand to his chin thoughtfully. He leaned forward, grabbing the boy's wrist. "There's a pulse."_

_"Well, that's all fine, but what're we going to do wiv 'im?" Barbossa asked, squatting next to Jack and lifting an eyebrow. "Can't cart around a little shrimp like this, wearin' only a bootstrap."_

_"Bootstrap. That's a pirate name," Jack announced, standing abruptly. "He's a pirate, he is." Leaning forward, he studied the boy's high-cheekboned face, his eyes large and ashy in the pale watery face. "And if he isn't, he'll be one soon enough."_

~*~

_William Turner. That's a fine strong name. Named for your father, I expect?_

That same surprise on the boy's face as Bill's, years ago. _I am Captain Jack Sparrow. Welcome to the Black Pearl, boy…_

And then the grin. _Beats the hell out of being an apprentice shoemaker._

Jack couldn't hide his grin. Annamaria, looking up from braiding rope and seeing the captain smiling away at nothing, shook her head dolefully at this apparent confirmation of his daftness. 

_Crazy as a loon, our Captain, _she thought, and smiled her own smile as she bent her head once again over her task.

~*~

"Elizabeth," Will Turner said softly, calling his wife's name experimentally. Somehow it came easier to his lips this time. 

"Yes, Will?" She turned to him, her hair half-up and half strewn across her face, her lips pushed out in that invitation unspoken but not unfelt. 

"Did you mean it when you said you would marry a pirate?"

She smiled, that half-smile that half-lidded her eyes and made her look mysterious, almost more beautiful than before. The curtains were still drawn, falling on her face so that it made her hair look black- black…the color of Jack's hair. Will shook his head to clear it and the mirage was gone. 

"Of course I did." 

He took her hand. "Elizabeth, we- I-" 

"We're going to join Jack?"

He smiled at her, feeling the warm pressure of her hand in his, still unused to the newness of the touch he had ached for since he had first met her, and nodded.

~*~

_"We'll be at Tortuga in a month, Will." Jack grinned. "If ye change your mind and don't want t' settle down wiv li'l Turners scamperin' about like mosquitoes." He waved his hand about vaguely, then frowned. "Not that mosquitoes scamper, mind. But if they did, I'm sure it would resemble your children' s scamperin'. Your future children, that is."_

_"I'll think about it, Jack," Will replied, and shook the captain's hand once more, thinking of Elizabeth on the dock. _

~*~

"Tortuga!" Elizabeth stood on the prow of the dinghy, feeling the sea wind in her hair. A tune half-forgotten but familiar ghosted through her head, and she began to hum it, smelling the salt of the sea.

_Yo ho, yo ho…a pirate's life for me…_

Will stood beside her, his mind not on her presence near him but far beyond, roaming the salty sea ahead until they pulled into shore. There in harbor was the Black Pearl, her sails billowing in the wind like memories flitting through his mind. 

And on the prow stood a lone figure, lurching slightly in the wind, a spyglass fixed firmly to his hand. 

~*~

_Bootstrap Bill, then? _The quick unsure grin, the scattering of freckles over the nose wrinkling slightly. _That's my name?_

_Well ye can't go by Turner, can ye? _Jack measured up his new crewman with a glance, as he had done many times before. _Can't strike fear into the hearts of men far and wide wiv a name like that! Turner's for cobblers and blacksmiths and Navy men. Ye're a pirate, lad…_

And speaking of Turners…

_Will. _Standing on the prow of the dinghy as Jack had half-expected he would be, the wind ruffling his hair and that same unsure smile on his face, staring at the Pearl with a mixture of bewildered worry and delight. 


	3. Chapter Three: Aboard the Black Pearl

The Blade of Captain Sparrow

By Thalia Weaver

Chapter 3

"Jack!" Elizabeth cried, waving at him as her dress streamed in the wind. As the dinghy neared the Pearl, Jack reached for her hand and helped her courteously onto the boat. Will stood on the deck for a moment, until he realized that no hand was forthcoming for him. As he stepped aboard ship, shaking his head, Jack tipped his hat and grinned, his gold teeth shining in the sunlight. 

"It's good to see you again," Will said, grinning ruefully. _More than you know. _

Jack looked at him and paused for a moment, his canny gaze raking Will from head to toe. _Still looks like his father, _he thought, then shook his head vehemently to clear it and turned to Elizabeth.

"I've changed my mind," he announced, addressing her bosom. "I think a relationship between us might be feasible after all. At least, a relationship between us," he gestured vaguely at her chest, "as in all three of us, I mean." 

Annamaria smiled. _He deserved that, _she thought, smiling down at her ropes as Elizabeth's slap rang out clearly over the water. 

Jack shook his head, his ears ringing. "Now, which one of you's the blacksmith, again?" he asked bemusedly, rubbing his sore cheek. "I wouldn't be surprised if a bruise forms there in the mornin'."  


"Well, I daresay it's no more than you deserve," she replied, standing straight and looking at him with English upper-class dignity. 

"Well now, lass, if you've plans to become a pirate…" he paused. "…piratess, ye'd best get used to that sort of talk. We're not like yonder Norrington, who looks as though he's something sharp and pointy shoved up his rear end if you catch my drift. Nay, pirates are a different, and more…" he gestured vividly, lurching slightly. "…uncouth breed. Savvy?"

"Uncouth, indeed," Elizabeth muttered. Jack grinned again. 

"So are ye planning to take up permanent residence on me ship?" he asked, lurching in Will's direction. "Prepared for a life of crime on the dirty wharfs of the Carribean, runnin' from the law at all times?" 

Will gulped a bit. A life on a pirate ship, abandoning all vestiges of respectability? Jack stood before him, hand on hip, his kohl-lined eyes sparkling with unfathomable amusement and his ragged bandana slipping down perilously close to one eye. 

"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me…" he sang softly, and winked at Jack. 

"A pirate's life?" Jack replied, staggering backwards in mock surprise. "What happened to Mr. 'I practice three hours a day so that if I ever meet a pirate, I can kill it?'"

Will winced. "He seems to have disappeared."

Jack grinned wider. "I _told _you you needed to get yourself a girl, mate."

Will, ignoring this, leaned back against the side of the boat. "When do we begin?"

Jack shook his head, as though he had just been awakened by someone dumping a bucket of water on his head. "What're we waiting for? All hands to the rigging, ye scurvy dogs! Scalawags! Pathetic excuses for pirates! Rag heaps! Raise the mast!" 

Annamaria angled herself in next to Elizabeth. "Welcome aboard the Black Pearl," she whispered, as Jack leapt atop the rigging and began to hum a familiar tune. 


	4. Chapter Four: Piracy and Shit Like That

The Blade of Captain Sparrow 

Chapter 4

The pirates attacked the chicken with suitably piratical glee, tearing at it ferociously and revealing teeth that were not in the finest state of dental health. 

"Msh dfhae sfadflne," announced Griggs, his mouth decidedly stuffed with meat. 

"Now now, I don't want t'hear any more of that fowl language," Jack replied, waving his drumstick expressively. A small piece of meat flew off and hit Cotton's parrot, which blinked, shifted its feet, and announced 'Rattle my bones!' After a moment Jack turned to Griggs again. "Mind sayin' that so a normal human could possibly understand?" 

"It's good chicken," Griggs replied, and went back to eating. Pausing suddenly, he looked up at Elizabeth. "Now I'm assuming ye aren't staring at me because of my overwhelming machismo, lass," he told her.

Elizabeth blinked, then blushed. "Oh-- no...it's only that-- didn't you once sail under Norrington? I remember you..."

"Oh, aye, I sailed with the Navy men for a bit. But it's a pirate's life for me, eh?" he shrugged. "Washed up on Tortuga and got meself a place there, an' after that respectability seemed to be beyond all recall or desire. Too much work anyways." 

"That sounds remarkably like me own story," Jack cut in, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Free of the rabid armadillos, of course..."

Will blinked. "_Can_ armadillos have rabies?" 

"Oh, aye," Jack nodded, vehemently. "I assure you they can. And...well, ye don't want to know anythin' more."

After that there was only the sound of chewing for a few moments.

"So, erm," Elizabeth began to Anamaria, awkwardly. "Do you really...pillage and plunder and rifle and loot, extort and ravage and all that?" 

Anamaria nodded, swallowing quickly. "Aye, that sounds like a fair job description-- but Jack's not s' violent as some. Ye've nothing t'fear; s'long as ye're an able-bodied crewmate," she grinned and motioned to her breasts, and Elizabeth blushed. "...an' ye don't think yerself above yer duties, then ye'll get along fine." 

Elizabeth exhaled slightly, feeling a slight tremble of- not fear, but...nervousness? Trepidation? Something quite different? -she couldn't place it...begin in the pit of her stomach. The Black Pearl was her home now...for the second time, and this time around she had made a decidedly more auspicious beginning.

~*~

"Cap'n! Ship sighted on the starboard side! An' she's a good 'un!" Griggs called, gluing his spyglass to his eye.   


"Give me that," Jack demanded, giving Annamaria the helm and snatching the spyglass. He leaned forward, lurching slightly. "Aye...there...riding quite marvelously low in the water. What a beauty!" He whistled and grinned, showing his gold teeth. "...It's our citizenly duty to help lighten her load, don't ye think? Ah yes. Never let it be said we don't do fer others. We're courteous pirates!"

Anamaria tapped Elizabeth on the shoulder, and the other woman looked up from pulling at the ropes, panting slightly.

"Ye're first pirate raid," the seasoned piratess said, looking at Elizabeth with an expression that was hard to read. "Don't worry." she grinned. "I'll help ye."

Elizabeth straightened, smoothing out the wrinkles in her britches out of habit. "Thanks." 

~*~

Jack turned to Will. "If you say 'avast' e'en once, mate, I might have to kill you. Savvy?"

Will nodded, looking slightly mutinous. 

~*~

Lord Hilloverdaleworthforthington lounged about on the deck of the H.M.S Requiescent, eating bonbons and padding his already overlarge stomach.   
  
"Slave," he called in his deeply apathetic voice, summoning the abused-looking small black girl that stood fanning him, "bring me my other wig. The powder isn't white enough on this one."

As she scurried away, he yawned widely and popped another chocolate into his mouth, settling back onto the divan that occupied most of the deck.

"Loverkins," his wife Lady Deppingforthham-Hilloverdaleworthforthington said sleepily, "did you hear something?"

Lord Hilloverdaleworthforthington shook his head, then lay back, exhausted from such strenuous physical activity. 

Then the pirates attacked.


	5. Chapter Five: A Slime On The Face Of The...

The Blade of Captain Sparrow   
Chapter 5: A Slime on the Face of the Earth  
  
  
The crew of the _Requiescent_, caught unprepared and unawares, were no match for the swift and intimidating crew of the Pearl, who subdued them with relatively little effort, but much "Arrrgh!"-ing and "Yarr!"-ing (it had been a long time since their last raid, after all). The captain, trussed like a chicken to the mast, mumbled something through his gag, glaring balefully at the cavorting pirates.   
  
Jack peered at him, bending over so their noses touched.   
  
"Gibbs," he said, straightening, then pausing and lifting a hand to his nose. "One never gags a captain, if one can help it." He twirled and removed the offending restraint. "But don't talk too loud," he said, with a grin. "I likes to concetrate on me plunder."  
  
* * *   
  
The Lord Hilloverdaleworthforthington, when pressed with immediate physical danger, found within himself a wellspring of strength and managed to remove himself from the deckchair, clambering over to the cabin while the pirates were occupied with his crew and hiding under the bed. His wife, finding that there was no room beneath the bunks because of her husband's bulk, looked around rather desperately.   
  
"Miss?" came a brave, honest-sounding voice from behind her. Lady Deppingforthham-Hilloverdaleworthforthington turned, her heart in her mouth, with a rustle of over-gaudy silk.   
  
"Um," said Will Turner, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "Yarr?"  
  
* * *   
  
Lord Hilloverdaleworthforthington panted slightly from his position beneath his bunk, sweating, the powder on his nose running. He would need the slaves to fan him for a long time after this...if there still were any, after the pirates were gone...he shuddered. He detested pirates.   
  
"A slime on the face of the earth," he muttered comfortingly to himself. "Why, if I came face to face with one, I would wipe it out of existence like the maggoty fungus it is..."  
  
"Well, that's a comfort," said Jack Sparrow, peering beneath the bed. "Glad to know an upright gentleman such as yourself is willin' to take the law into his own hands to rid th' sea of a scourge such as pirates. Why, I'm tremblin' in me boots, person'lly."   
  
  
* * *   
  
"Rape, loot, plunder, pillage," Elizabeth repeated to herself, looking around at the ship. "All right, rape's out. Loot, plunder, pillage...erm..."  
  
* * * 

Will cleared his throat, facing the crowd of impatient pirates. 

"So...what I'm saying is..." he repeated for those whose attention spans were less than thirty seconds, "...ahh, we should...leave her alone?" The last words were suspiciously squeak-like for a (former) blacksmith.

"I knew we shouldn't've taken 'im along," muttered Bidon the dwarf, three feet of solid malevolence. "Next 'e'll be goin' on about chivalry..."

"Listen 'ere, me bucko," Kostos the Greek said, relatively gently for a pirate. "I know ye've been th' victim of good breedin', an' all, but..._look at her._" He pointed to the Lady Deppingforthham-etc., who wibbled. "She was _born _to be pirated."

"But," Will said, desperately. He was suddenly, and urgently, reminded of a rather uncomfortable problem that had plagued him since he was very young: whenever his morals were being compromised, his feet began to sweat. They were currently in danger of soaking his shoes. "I..."

Jack entered the scene with his customary flair, carrying an armful of loot. He quickly assessed the group of milling pirates, the gaudily dressed woman, and the Will Turner converged around the deck. 

"Well, well," he said, addressing the Lady Deppingforthingham-etc., who did her best to look competent. "Six necklaces, eleven rings, eight bracelets, nine pairs of exotic underwear, and a half-trunkful of black brassieres...all from your husband."

The lady looked scandalized. 

"Now, I suggest you surrender all of y' portable wealth t' my highly competent and very able crew, whilst I take th' young man for a walk," he said, smiling kindly. The pirates grinned.

Jack took Will by the shoulder and led him around the deck.

"Now, are yer feet sweatin', lad?"

Will looked startled. "Wha--"

"Don't forget, I was yer father's captain, too."

Will stared at Jack, and couldn't think of anything to say. Jack had leaned against the side of the ship, rocking slightly with every lap of the blue-black water. Jack smiled a little, and it would have been a sad one if he hadn't stood and thumped Will on the back.

"Good breedin's like a disease, I've found," he said, with the air of someone transferring great wisdom. "It's best fer ye t'get over it before bits of ye fall off."

* * * 

"All right," Elizabeth muttered, shoving jewelry into the sack she had expropriated from the captain's cabin. "Loot." 

She shoved a few ornaments into her sack, viciously. "This is for the corsets..."


End file.
